ABC Releases Alleged Virginia Gunman’s 23-Page List of Grievances

Just two hours after he allegedly shot two journalists on live television, Vester Lee Flanagan (aka Bryce Williams) contacted ABC News and faxed them a 23-page document. ABC initially declined to release the material, instead handing it over to authorities to investigate. But now that Flanagan has died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the news station has published the pages.

In it, Flanagan writes, "[M]y anger has been building steadily ... I’ve been a human powder keg for a while … just waiting to go BOOM!!!!” He describes the June shooting of nine black church members in Charleston, South Carolina, by Dylann Roof as the event that pushed him over the edge, following years of what he claimed was racial discrimination as well as homophobic mistreatment.

“Why did I do it?" Flanagan writes. "I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15 … What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them."

Flanagan also referenced several other mass-shooting events, writing of Virginia Tech gunman Seung Hui Cho as well as Columbine High School shooters Eric Harris and Dylann Klebold.